/ Press note / Private Universes / Jon Irigoyen /
Home Exhibition
PRIVATE
UNIVERSES
09.05.09 – 23.05.09
Opening Friday 8th of May
18 – 21h
Location:
A private apartment
located in Punavuori
Helsinki
Entrance contact:
privateuniverses@gmail.com
http://
privateuniverses.blogspot.com
+358466648476
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Oliver Whitehead
Juhana Moisander
Panagiotes Balomenos
Annette Arlander
Johanna Lecklin
Janna Kokko
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Curated by Jon Irigoyen
/ Press note / Private Universes / Jon Irigoyen /
The house is our corner of the world. This is our first universe, is really the cosmos.
A world‐wide acceptance of the term.
The poetics of space. Gaston Bachelard.
All really inhabited space contains the essence of the concept of home, because they unite the memory and imagination, to
strengthen each other … So the house is one of the main forms of integration of thoughts, memories and dreams of humanity .
Without it, the man would be dispersed.
Interpretations of the poetry of Hölderlin. Martin Heidegger.
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The word home is used to designate the place where the person lives, grows, and feels safety and calm.
People designate home as the physical place, with four walls and defined by tangible elements, but it is
a non‐physical space as well, furnished by emotions, experiences, feelings, .. which make it up and make
its existence possible.
The exhibition Private Universes ‐ through the work of artists composed of video installations,
performances, photographs and paintings ‐ intends to show how the home becomes an extension of the
individual. As it becomes the place where man builds his identity, recognizing in the treatment which is
established with the space that welcomes him and makes him become himself. Hence the fact of the
exhibition being realized in a private apartment. In addition to causing a reflection about the exhibition
spaces and the differentet possibilities of them, the aim is to show the symbiotic relationships between
the private space that we call home and the individual.
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OLIVER WHITEHEAD / Borders and Wallpaper.
Mural in wall / 1 x 3 meters
For centuries wallpaper has reflected the aesthetic and historical trends of the Western world.
Wallpaper is a construct of our social and everyday environment.
Interiors of homes are decorated with floral decorations and patterns, bringing images of nature and
abstraction into the spaces of; homes, institutions, offices, hospitals etc.
/ Press note / Private Universes / Jon Irigoyen /
My wall drawings explore the pattern making that is intrinsic to wallpaper design and they way
decorative embelishments are arranged. Wallpaper does more than just cover or decorate walls, it is
also a form of adorment thatcan signify, among other things, power and intimacy simultaneously.
JUHANA MOISANDER / The suitcaselady
Video, mixed‐media installation
The suitcase is left at the lobby. Someone is leaving and someone is left longing.
The lobby is the room from where people enter or exit the house. It leads to the rest of the rooms and it
is the place where you usually say goodbye. A suitcase is traditional vessel that one carries around when
traveling. The things you pack inside creates your temporary home in your new location.
My videoprojection the suitcaselady is reflecting these aspects of certain room of a house and the
theme of leaving and longing.
PANAGIOTIS BALOMENOS / bedroom stories
Performance
The artist will be dressed in a tailor made uniform out of a multicoloured cotton elastic textile that will
cover entirely his body, from the head to the feet, positioned into one of the apartment’s bedrooms.
There is not script or plan for the performance in question done before hand to follow. This live event
will proceed independently of the audience’s positive, negative, active or passive participation, without
sense of beginning or end.
Although the artist will be covered entirely with this second – skin – like uniform his inner world
composed by fantasies and his most hidden subconscious senses, is completely undressed in front of the
spectators.
ANNETTE ARLANDER / Good Morning
Performance
Annette Arlander performs (with) a video documenting the view from her bedroom window every
morning during the year 2006.
/ Press note / Private Universes / Jon Irigoyen /
JOHANNA LECKLIN / Tomorrow ‐ Huominen
Video installation. 16 mm film transferred to video.
Tomorrow is a short film where a little girl wonders about the meaning of the concept tomorrow. The
story is based on a childhood memory recorded within the Story Café project. Jeanne, a French visitor to
the Story Café in Helsinki in autumn 2006, told the original story and it is the first Story Café story to be
made into a short film. The events of the film unfold in a home in Finland in the 1970s. A little girl
demands that her father explain what tomorrow means. Dissatisfied with the answers she gets, she
decides to stay up until midnight and wait for tomorrow to come.
JANNA KOKKO / Home Is a Poem
Video and 5 framed diptych portraits
Poet Anna Akhmatova, who wrote about the lives of people in St. Petersburg, Petrograd and Leningrad,
died in 1966. Today a group of women guard and act as guides at her home on the Liteyny Prospect. I
was interested to learn more about these women. I asked them if I could visit their homes and take their
portrait photographs. My approach was conceptual. Instead of portraying a historical person, I wanted
to concentrate on living ones. Instead of portraying an object, I wanted to focus on what’s human.
CURATOR
JON IRIGOYEN
Producer of thoughs, independent art curator and researcher, is fascinated with the alternative
exhibition formats as well as the crosscutting relationships between artist and spectator. He is
interested in management, production, programming and cultural communication. In the last 13 years
has lived in different European cities: Bilbao, Madrid, Bristol and Barcelona, being currently based in
Helsinki. He has previously worked as art director in advertising and as a university teacher. Prepares
another exhibition in Helsinki for the end of 2009.